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How can something haunting be under your skin? My disc arrived yesterday and I cannot stop listening to it. Laurie is brilliant, the Kronos Quartet is brilliant, the whole thing is beautiful and powerful and moving. Tears and laughter. Laurie never fails to surprise.

It is about time. Two of the most innovative, important, contemporary musical artists have come together to create a stunning collaboration. Electric violinist, storyteller, and theatrical performer Laurie Anderson and champions of classical new music and world composers Kronos Quartet developed a mesmerizing atmospheric collection of impressions from the day Hurricane Sandy came to New York City. Electronic samples, particularly of weather sounds, are including as background layers. Most of the album is instrumental, the titles creating associated images. The suite is of steady moderate tempo, and the mood persists with the flow of the quartet's lyricism, sometimes in traditional classical motifs. It is punctuated by Anderson's narrative sections. She does not speak until the fourth track and only briefly but when she comes to the piece Dreams, we hear her familiar riffs of apparent stream-of-consciousness. The later non sequitur of taking refuge in a Dutch karaoke bar with Korean-language songs and software glitches reflects the chaos of the storm on the populace. Dawn of the World, a section that is full of scratching strings and other noises, indicates the awesome destructive and creative power of Nature. After questioning the authoritative use of lies to placate people about to face war and other disasters, the extended piece that concerns animal extinction, with Anderson's electronic baritone voice, warns us of the instability and fragility of life through the agency of both Nature and directly, or indirectly, our own hands, but with reference to doing yoga and comparisons to the enduring stars. The interlude, Never What You Think It Will Be, has electronic bass beats and a funky feeling. Other electronics follow in a low volume repeated rhythm of muffled drums of aftermath, and then the dissonance of society's discordant blame game. The electronically processed Helicopters Hang Over Downtown remind me of a more interesting work from Yuval Ron's airport ballet suite, Music for LAX: Everywhere, Nowhere. With the underlay of a generic old, scratchy LP, the album winds down with bells of the 'all clear' and the sound of surveying helicopters. 30 tracks over 70 minutes make this concept album a memorable musical commentary on humans in natural disasters.

We have followed the trajectory of Laurie Anderson since "O Superman" and this album is the culmination of an extraordinary musical career to date. This is a moving paean to loss and recovery which should be an essential component of your music library/